During his keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said that the company will pledge $300 million to be used for scholarships aimed at bringing more women, African Americans, and other ethnicities into the tech sector. The company is partnering with a number of groups to do this including Feminist Frequency, The National Center for Women and Information technology, The Anita Borg Institute, UNCF, Girls Who Code, Society of Women Engineers, the IGDA, NACME, and many others.

Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada is asking for feedback on the next title in Namco Bandai's long-running fighting game series. In a Facebook post Harada showed off some early designs for a "Arab" character.

An Indie GoGo fundraising campaign has launched for Luc Bernard's Imagination Is The Only Escape, a game about a young Jewish boy named Samuel who uses the power of his imagination to escape the horrors of the Holocaust after the Nazi occupation of eastern France during World War II. To say that the game's subject matter is dark is an understatement, but that's the point of the game, according to what Luc Bernard recently told The Verge.

Something interesting happened this weekend after Brad Keselowski won the NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Watkins Glen: he credited video games for helping him to master the track. Keselowski told Motorsports Talk that he learned to navigate the legendary New York road course by playing video games, and that the knowledge and expertise he gained playing the track in the virtual world translated to success in the real world.

First Lady Michelle Obama recently gave a commencement address at Bowie State University encouraging more young African Americans to continue their education. She does so by throwing culture like videogames, television, and music under the bus.

Nnnnice Games, an independent studio operating out of the Netherlands named its "raccoons in space" game "Starcoons," not knowing that the term is considered by some as a racist term. After learning that the title of its game might be offensive to African Americans and people of color, the studio decided that it had to change the name of its game. Starcoons will now be known as Curio's Starquest, the developer announced. The studio also said that it was unaware of the possible cultural issues associated with the game's original title.

Ball State University (in Muncie, Indiana) professor Ronald Morris and computer science professor Paul Gestwicki have teamed up with graduate students to create a Unity-based game that teaches fourth grade students about the Underground Railroad (thanks to Polygon). The game is called The Underground Railroad in the Ohio Valley River and puts students in the shoes of a runaway slave who must make his or her way to Canada where they can live a free life.

In line with a story we published earlier this morning, Computer and Videogames highlights some excerpts from an interview with Jean-Maxime Moris, the co-founder of Paris studio Dontnod. Dontnod is the studio behind Capcom's upcoming action title Remember Me, which features a mixed-race female star as its protagonist.

Following up on yesterday's accusation by an employee that social game developer Kixeye engaged in "institutional racism," four employees have been fired today. The accusations were made by an unnamed contractor who wrote a blog post under the name of Qu33riousity. He claimed yesterday that he was the victim of racial discrimination and has also seen it directed at others.

Social game company Kixeye finds itself embroiled in an allegation of institutional racism this morning after an employee going by the handle "Qu33riousity" detailed multiple instances of discrimination against Kixeye's African American employees in a blog post. That blog post has since been removed, but not before he was told that he was being "too sensitive" and that the comments were "just jokes."

In a recent interview with Computer & Video Games, Ubisoft's Alex Hutchinson, the creative director of Assassin's Creed 3, said that games journalists are engaging in subtle racism when they give Japanese games a free pass on bad or odd story-telling while putting Western games through the ringer. When asked about why Nintendo can get away with endlessly reiterating the same basic stories with games like Super Mario Bros., Hutchinson offered a blunt response.

Gamers Against Bigotry, a site that asked gamers to take a pledge promising not to use bigoted language while playing games online, announced that it has lost 1500 signatures due to repeated attacks from hackers. The site has faced some tough challenges from months of repeated attacks from hackers who have done everything from posting "grotesque images" on the website's signatures page, to making it impossible for new visitors to sign on to the pledge.

It takes a unique kind of person to create a video promoting an obviously fake video game about slavery, a sad part of our history that the majority of Americans do not find much humor in. Nonetheless, we live in an age where the Internet allows for all kinds of free speech - even the kind we do not agree with, find offensive, or find to be outright disgusting. Still, sometimes you have to look straight into the abyss to see the foolishness of humanity. Perhaps this is one of those moments, so we present the promotional video for "Slavery - The Game."

A Science Daily report called "Motion Sickness Reality in Virtual World, Too" discusses a new study about motion sickness associated with the Xbox 360 Kinect and PlayStation 3 Move. Clemson University (Clemson, SC) psychologist Eric Muth says that motion sickness from high-end technology that was at one time limited only to commercial marketplace and government training simulations is now in livings rooms across the U.S. This means that, with more access to this technology and the advent of 3D TV, motion sickness may become a more common thing to regular consumers.

New research by one Dr. Christopher Ferguson from Texas A&M International University finds that depression in young people has more of a correlation to aggressive and violent behavior than gaming does - at least among Hispanics. While the study was narrowed to one demographic, the conclusions are nonetheless interesting.

"Depressive symptoms stand out as particularly strong predictors of youth violence and aggression, and therefore current levels of depression may be a key variable of interest in the prevention of serious aggression in youth," Ferguson concluded. "The current study finds no evidence to support a long-term relationship between video game violence use and subsequent aggression. Even though the debate over violent video games and youth violence will continue, it must do so with restraint."

A game appearing on the website of a Spanish political party, in which players shot down illegal immigrants, was quickly yanked from the Internet after objections to its content.

The game, entitled Rescue, appeared on the website of the Catalan branch of the conservative Partido Popular (or People’s Party). Further describing the game, the Telegraph indicated that the goal was to “shoot down targets including ‘illegal immigrants’ parachuting from a plane and donkeys intended to represent Catalan separatists."

Once culminated, the game urged players to vote for the PP in the November 28 elections.

Consumer Reports found that “The log-in problem is related to low-level lighting and not directly to players' skin color,” adding that the Kinect camera needs a certain amount of light and contrast in order to determine a user’s facial features.

In testing Kinect, the organization “did not experience any instance where one player was recognized and the other wasn't under the same lighting conditions.”

A story on GameSpot details the problems two dark-skinned site employees had with Microsoft’s Kinect, the just-released, controller-free add-on for the Xbox 360.

According to the site, the two employees in question had problems with Kinect’s facial recognition abilities. One GameSpoter’s face was recognized “inconsistently,” while when it came to the face of the other staffer, Kinect was “never able to properly identify the other despite repeated calibration attempts.”

To make it even more confounding, Kinect had “no problems” recognizing the face of a third dark-skinned employee. No hurdles were reported with Kinect’s skeletal tracking system for any of the employees, which is good, as it is the primary means of controlling on-screen action.

The problem may or may not be that big of a deal however, as GameSpot wrote:

An interesting opinion piece on The Atlantic Wire looks at race politics in video games, focusing on first-person shooters. Author Max Fisher talks about Resident Evil 5, Medal of Honor and Modern Warfare 2, inspired by an essay from Jim Gourley for ForeignPolicy.com.

The thrust of the opinion piece is about the painful transition from conflicts against zombies and fictionalized Nazis to real world conflicts involving real groups of people and how developers portray them. Here's a taste:

In mid-July GamePolitics reported on Houston Chronicle game blogger Willie Jefferson's assertion that video games are increasingly possessed of "racist undertones."

In support of his claim Jefferson mentioned the much-debatedResident Evil 5 as well as the recently-released Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood. Jefferson also pointed to Valve's in-development Left 4 Dead 2 (screenshot at left):

I am disturbed by the growing trend of racist undertones that are cropping up in video games.

One of the games that comes to mind is "Left 4 Dead 2." ...Set in New Orleans, players will have to fight their way through hordes of zombies - with several of them who appear to be African-Americans. When I saw the first trailer for the game, all I could think about was Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath...

In the wake of Jefferson's charge, a writer for L4D2 has fired back, reports Destructoid:

While visiting Valve this past week, we asked how they felt about the [racism] accusations, and Left 4 Dead writer Chet Faliszek was quite frank with his response.

"Utter insanity," says Faliszek... "There are mixed races of zombies, there are all different races of zombies that you shoot, and since we placed it in New Orleans, that makes it racist? I honestly re-read the [Houston Chronicle] paragraph about five times ... but when two of the characters in your game are African-American, it's a weird thing to be accused of. We're like, 'how does this work'?

"... As far as Katrina goes, if you go down to New Orleans, Katrina's still going on. I mean, it's messed up, it is crazy that the city is still in the state it's in, and we treat that with the utmost respect... It's a place we love, it's dear to our hearts. We would not cheapen it. It's not a brick-for-brick representation of New Orleans; it's a fictional version, and I love that city."

If you are a white male, the chances are pretty good that you will have something in common with the character you play in your favorite video game.

If you are a woman or ethnic minority, not so much.

At least, that's the conclusion drawn by researchers from the University of Southern California, Indiana University, Ohio University and Virginia Polytechnic. The research is published in the current issue of New Media & Society.

Study leader Dmitri Williams of USC commented on the data:

Latino children play more video games than white children. And they're really not able to play themselves. For identity formation, that's a problem. And for generating interest in technology, it may place underrepresented groups behind the curve.

Ironically, they may even be less likely to become game makers themselves, helping to perpetuate the cycle. Many have suggested that games function as crucial gatekeepers for interest in science, technology, engineering and math.

According to the study, only 3% of video game characters are Hispanic; all of those noted were non-playable characters. Ony 10% of characters are women.

African-Americans are more proportionately represented, but mostly appear in sports games or titles like 50 Cent Bulletproof which represent racial stereotypes.

President Barack Obama has - yet again - referenced playing video games as a metaphor for underachievement.

[GP:clickherefor other recent examples, although Obama has made similar comments going back to at least 2006.]

In a speech in New York last night marking the 100th anniversary of the NAACP, Obama said:

We have to say to our children, Yes, if you’re African American, the odds of growing up amid crime and gangs are higher. Yes, if you live in a poor neighborhood, you will face challenges that someone in a wealthy suburb does not. But that’s not a reason to get bad grades, that’s not a reason to cut class, that’s not a reason to give up on your education and drop out of school. No one has written your destiny for you. Your destiny is in your hands - and don’t you forget that.

To parents, we can’t tell our kids to do well in school and fail to support them when they get home. For our kids to excel, we must accept our own responsibilities. That means putting away the Xbox and putting our kids to bed at a reasonable hour. It means attending those parent-teacher conferences, reading to our kids, and helping them with their homework...

It also means pushing our kids to set their sights higher. They might think they’ve got a pretty good jump shot or a pretty good flow, but our kids can’t all aspire to be the next LeBron or Lil Wayne. I want them aspiring to be scientists and engineers, doctors and teachers, not just ballers and rappers. I want them aspiring to be a Supreme Court Justice. I want them aspiring to be President of the United States.

Yesterday's edition of the Houston Chronicle's Game Hack blog ponders whether racism is becoming a norm in video game design.

Blogger Willie Jefferson expresses concern over 2009 releases Resident Evil 5 and Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood (pic at left) as well as the in-development Left 4 Dead 2. RE5, of course, has already been the subject of much debate over its depiction of African villagers as zombies. Jefferson writes:

I am disturbed by the growing trend of racist undertones that are cropping up in video games.

One of the games that comes to mind is "Left 4 Dead 2." ...Set in New Orleans, players will have to fight their way through hordes of zombies - with several of them who appear to be African-Americans. When I saw the first trailer for the game, all I could think about was Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath...

The game that really inspired this blog entry was Ubisoft's "Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood." The game starts out with players assuming the role of Ray, a Confederate officer... the Confederacy, as far as I am concerned, wanted to keep their cheap slave labor and the like. I can not stand the Confederate flag... To me, the flag represents hate -- and offends me and many others to no end. [It] made me wonder how much research Ubisoft did for this game...

As a minority, had the South won, I wouldn't be in this position I am today...

Prof. Cassandra Newby-Alexander said that the history of the Underground Railroad, a network which helped slaves escape from the South in pre-Civil War days, is not well understood:

The underground Railroad was a much more complex issue than it's been made out. When you push a person to a point where they have nothing to lose, that's when you create a formidable enemy. Ultimately, human beings are going to be free.

When you ask people to describe the Underground Railroad, they think of Harriet Tubman on foot, with a gun. Most slaves didn't escape that way. I don't want to dumb-down the game.

Newby-Alexander is working with a local playwright to create a script for the game, which is expected for PC in 2011.

Pacific Islanders are expressing outrage over a popular iPhone game which they say encourages the torture and killing of characters who resemble them.

The Brisbane Times reports that the Pacific Women's Information Network has targeted Pocket God, which puts the player in a deity-like position of power over "primitive islanders." Group spokesperson Elaine Howard - who lives in the United States - told the newspaper:

How do you think people would react if you created a game where you were God and you could create and kill as many Mexicans as you wanted? Or Asians? People would be outraged.

I hope you don't decide to advertise your application in New Zealand or Australia because you will get a backlash of the same intensity.

Dr. Malakai Koloamatangi of New Zealand's Canterbury University added:

To claim [the characters] are not Pacific islanders is ridiculous. Everything about them is Polynesian. How can they justify encouraging the torture of a race in this way? It's disgusting.

I'm not saying let's bring in the thought police but there needs to be limits on what is acceptable, and this surpasses those.

Bolt Creative, which developed the 99-cent app, denied that it intended to depict any actual ethnic group in the game.

An experienced First Amendment lawyer warned that political correctness is a looming threat to the video game industry.

Lawrence Walters made his remarks at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco yesterday. GameSpot offers a report:

Just when the decency police and moral values groups have been all but defeated in the courts--both of law and public opinion--a new threat has emerged from our left flank: political correctness. The leftist thought police are now wanting to impose their view of propriety on modern cultural discourse...

Think about [a New York bill that would prevent minors from purchasing games containing racial stereotypes]... Would we ever in a million years tolerate the government passing a law that movies cannot have profanity, racial jokes, or derogatory language? That would eliminate practically every movie made.

Now we can debate all day long whether racist stereotypes or derogatory language is even appropriate in video games, but that's for us to debate, and not for the government to decide... [The video game industry] needs to reveal its enemies for who they are--radicals on the left and on the right--and marginalize them...

Shout box

Wymorence: For me it just boils down to the fact that, even at a giant company, when a game comes out annually it just gives it a vibe of being rushed out the door. And god knows Unity sucked some major lemur with all its bugs...03/31/2015 - 4:22pm

PHX Corp: I launched my spotify account today, and I kinda went a little overboard with adding music03/31/2015 - 3:59pm

Sora-Chan: Con't. Games like AC are a pain to someone like me who likes to play games in order. So when a game gets too many releases too quickly, it puts me off. Only exceptions are games that have no interconnected underlying stories like the FF games.03/31/2015 - 2:53pm

Sora-Chan: Wikipedia has rarely let me down on matters like this. But yeah... AC needs a break.. like two.. or three... or eight years.03/31/2015 - 2:51pm

Conster: There's 9 already?! I think I played 1, 2, and the ones inbetween 2 and 3.03/31/2015 - 2:23pm

Sora-Chan: Con't There are now Nine... of just the main entries into the series. There are 13 more in the "other games" department.03/31/2015 - 2:15pm

Sora-Chan: I tried to get into AC. Was having a decent time with the first one, at which point they had already released three titles. Then a fourth came out... then a fifth... the wall kept growing before I could finish the first.03/31/2015 - 2:14pm

Daniel Lewis: I think ubisoft should give AC a break before it's milked to death,and i'm a big fan of the games03/31/2015 - 1:15pm

Daniel Lewis: The only thing said i disagree with is the final quote on Men's experiences are seen to be universal but women are gendered,though doesn't anita say that games with male protagonists are male power fantasies,so in turn both are gendered03/31/2015 - 1:08pm

Daniel Lewis: i found the video to be much better than any of the TvW series and it's about time the positive women are put in the spotlight03/31/2015 - 1:06pm

Daniel Lewis: So feministfrequency released a positive female character video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXmj2yJNUmQ03/31/2015 - 1:05pm

Daniel Lewis: I think the guy who made the direct leak said it was an april fools joke when a real one was announced03/31/2015 - 12:43pm

MaskedPixelante: No way Nintendo would let information like that get out. Remember, they shut down a memoir about the localization of Earthbound by enforcing a 20 year old NDA on the author.03/31/2015 - 12:42pm

james_fudge: Conster: the larger issue is that Ind. does not protect LGBTQ+ people under state law03/31/2015 - 12:11pm

PHX Corp: @MP I think it is confirmed(not an April Fools joke) http://mynintendonews.com/2015/03/31/nintendo-direct-confirmed-for-wednesday-april-1st/03/31/2015 - 12:00pm

Conster: Apparently Pence intends to amend SB101 so denying service isn't allowed - without explicitly protecting LGBT+ and while still allowing the many other things you can get away with now if it's motivated by your religious beliefs.03/31/2015 - 11:53am

MaskedPixelante: http://mynintendonews.com/2015/03/30/rumour-nintendo-direct-on-april-1st/ A supposed full leak of tomorrow's Nintendo Direct, so you can all laugh and laugh about how wrong it is.03/31/2015 - 11:35am